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New Iraq war handbook aimed at leaders

The second in a series of three handbooks on surviving the first 100 days in Iraq will be posted online by mid-May, and if the success of the first handbook is any indication, it promises to be a bestseller.

“Soldiers Handbook: First 100 Days” was published online in January for junior troops and basic trainees and has been hugely popular, according to the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The handbook is based on a CALL survey of more than 1,700 troops on observations about the dangers in early deployment and measures that can be taken to be safer.

CALL has distributed 75,000 copies of the first 70-page booklet in the Army, including at basic officer leadership courses; First Army has printed thousands of copies of its own; tens of thousands have been requested by the Marine Corps; and elements of the Navy and the Australian military have requested boxes of the handbook, said Milt Hileman, a retired Army major and lead analyst on the First 100 Days series.

The newest handbook, “Leaders’ Handbook: First 100 Days,” which will go into print about three weeks after it’s posted online, is based on the same survey and aimed at leaders in the first line of command — the lieutenants, captains, platoon sergeants and first sergeants who make decisions about soldiers’ activities every day.

“Decisions that junior leaders are making will have a huge impact on how their soldiers survive,” Hileman said. According to survey data, he said, “Soldiers were clear that for good leaders they’ll do what those leaders ask them to.”

Junior soldiers with experience on the battlefield responded to questions about leadership, good and bad, and said they felt their chances of survivability were greater if leaders displayed some of these attributes:

• Tactical competency.

• confidence.

• decisiveness.

• willingness to share risk in combat.

• The will to prosecute a fight, but in a way that doesn’t put soldiers at unnecessary risk.

• propensity to listen to younger soldiers’ experiences and willingness to learn from them.

• Demand for adherence to standards of safety and operations.

“Soldiers said standards have to be maintained and that the leaders have to personally set the standards themselves,” Hileman said.

Included in the new leaders’ handbook is an introduction to biometrics, an electronic identification system that records iris and thumbprint data in a computer about the size of a hardcover book, a technology that commanders at the company level have recently begun using to establish ID for Iraqis and others in the combat zone.

The handbook gives those leaders guidance on how to use the information.

“At the soldier level, it’s how to use the machine. At the leaders’ level, its ‘How do I integrate these machines operationally and tactically,’” said CALL Director Col. Steve Mains, Mains, who said explained that now that there is an established Iraqi court system, evidence against suspects Iraqi citizens has to be as meticulous as possible.

A third handbook for soldiers working at the staff level is due to be available this summer.